Medici
by aadarshinah
Summary: In which the Second Expedition is formed. #31 in the Ancient!John 'verse.
1. Pars Una

Medici

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**27 December, 2006 – Colorado Springs, Terra, Avalon**

The snow is hard on the ground and the heater is working furiously against it, but that seems to mean nothing to the man waiting for her inside the town car. It's a black Lincoln – the stretched kind, made to fit five or six passengers – and it looks like something out of every political drama she's ever seen. The man is equally cliché, wearing a dark, military issue peacoat and dark, expensive leather gloves. His boots are highly polished, as are the eagles on his epaulettes. If pressed, she'd describe him as of Filipino descent and in his late forties, with a face that's seen a hard life and a presence that seems to take up more space than it really should. It's vaguely terrifying, and if she didn't need this job so badly Jennifer thinks she'd climb right back out of the car and find the nearest crowded place to lose herself in rather than see what a man like that might want from someone like her.

"Hello, Doctor Keller," the man says.

"Er, hello," she says awkwardly. What else is she supposed to say? _"Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want from me? Please, I'll do anything you want just don't hurt me. Please." _Yes, _that_ is bound to go over real well. There's something shark-like about the stranger. She knows without consciously realizing it that she'll be lost forever at the first sign of blood in the water with this man, and so she must stumble blindly through whatever it is he wants of her to reach the safety at the other end.

If there is safety at the other end. She's here in Colorado Springs two days after Christmas for what promises to be a long two weeks of preparatory meetings and debriefings regarding the International Scientific Initiative mission to Antarctica she's signed on to. But people signed on to work for international NGOs aren't picked up from the airport by US Air Force lieutenants with unmarked town cars and ominous men in the back seat. She'd thought something was not entirely right about the whole situation – surely the application process for a billet at a remote research station shouldn't be so rigorous, nor the compensation quite so lavish – but the money is just too good for her to walk away from. Her school loans are coming due, to say absolutely nothing about Dad's medical bills. They need the money.

God, did they need the money.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was never supposed to be like this. She was supposed to become a doctor and that was supposed to fix all their money worries forever. It wasn't supposed to make everything _worse_. It wasn't supposed to make it so bad that working for the mob, or human traffickers, or God only knows what else a man like this might be involved in, is the only option she has if they want to keep the house and pay the bills and-

Jennifer takes a deep breath.

The car begins to move.

"I am Colonel David Telford with the Air Force's 512th Aerospace Fighter Group," the man says, eyes a little too sharp as he watches her struggle out of her coat, as if he knows the suit underneath is the best one she has, but even then is almost four years old and starting to show its age. The watch this stranger – this Colonel – is wearing probably costs twice as much. At least, "and I'm here to offer you a job."

"Oh," she laughs, nervous, uncomfortable, relieved. "That's- That's really wonderful of you, thank you, but I've already got a job. Actually, I'm on my way-"

"You are on your way to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex," the Colonel answers for her, "where you will be told that the International Scientific Initiative you have applied to is, in truth, a front for an organization known as the International Oversight Advisory, which administers the civilian components of the Stargate Program and Atlantis Expedition. You will be informed that your posting will not, in fact, be at McMurdo, but rather a top secret base constructed upon the remains of an alien outpost. There your primary responsibility will be to ensure the health of the other researchers and aid in creating a more effective gene therapy for activating dormant genes left in our DNA by an Ancient forbearer known on this planet as Janus so as to allow a greater percentage of our pilots to operate the highly advanced weaponry his people left behind."

"I- Oh," she says faintly, relief gone. Forget Air Force officer or mob boss, the man in the car with her is completely delusional. "Aliens, huh?"

"Yes. We call this particular species _The Ancients_, although they are also known as _The Gate Builders _and _The Ancestors_ depending on which planet you're asking upon. The continent was once home to one of their massive city-ships. The outpost is one of the only structures that remain."

Jennifer's done her psych rotation. She knows the cardinal rule of these sorts of things is not to play into their delusions. But she can't seem to stop herself from asking, "What happened to them?"

"There was a plague. The survivors migrated to the Pegasus Galaxy." There is a folder in Telford's hands, deep grey with words like _classified_ and _do not copy_ printed in bold letters across the front. He hands it to her. "Conveniently, this relates to the job opportunity I mentioned earlier."

"I-" she swallows. She's jetlagged and had been too nervous to sleep well last night and had been the subject of too many tearful goodbyes this morning. She feels stupid and underdressed and more than a little browbeaten, but she's not going to let that stop her. She can't. "I'm sorry, but I just don't see what this has to do with me. If, as you say, I've been hired to do research in Antartica, then that's what I've been hired to do. I don't know what _Ancients_ and _spaceships_ and _The Pegasus galaxy_ is supposed to do with me. I'm a doctor, not an astronaut."

Telford gives her a predatory smile. "Doctors are exactly what the Pegasus galaxy needs. It is, for various reasons, highly undeveloped. We had been conducting goodwill missions amongst the populations of various planets until recently, when one of the Ancients – one who had, until this point, been instrumental to the survival of our Expedition there – staged something of a coup. He's installed himself as the emperor of the galaxy; a majority of the populace worships him as a living god. Our Expedition was eventually forced from its base under his rule, but recently he has come to the realization that he cannot hold power with the forces currently at his disposal and has invited the Expedition to return. We believe he wants to use our goodwill missions to, among other things, expand his influence and solidify his powerbase."

"It sounds like you're planning to go back."

"We are," he confirms, offering her a predatory smile. "I have already been named as the Military Commander for the Second Expedition."

Jennifer fiddles with the folder in her hands – not opening it, just picking at one of the corners. "Why go back at all if this guy is so bad?"

"Because Atlantis is a treasure trove of alien technology that humanity needs to guard itself from other, more terrible enemies."

"More terrible than some alien dictator?"

"Others will debrief you further, but yes."

Swallowing again, "And just what does this have to do with me?"

"Most of the civilian scientists for the Expedition have already been chosen. Many are carryovers from the previous Expedition or had been slated to join the staff on the next transport. We are, however, decidedly lacking in medical staff, particularly a Chief of Medicine."

Jennifer rapidly figures out where this is going. "What? Whoa. Hang on a tick, buster. I'm just- I'm barely out of medical school. I've spent three of the last five years since getting my license out of the country-"

"-in the Ivory Coast as part of the Doctors without Borders effort there. You returned to Wisconsin in January of 2005, following your father's diagnosis of colon cancer. For the last two years you have worked at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, but recent monetary pressures forced you to search for options farther afield. You were encouraged to apply for your current position by Doctor Simon Wallis of Georgetown University Hospital, your former attending and the ex-fiancé of the former Atlantis Expedition leader, the late Doctor Elizabeth Weir. You are currently two hundred ten thousand dollars in debt and maxed out your credit card purchasing the plane ticket here. I know _everything_ about you and know that you are the best choice for a Chief of Medicine I have."

"But-" she stutters. "But _why me_?"

"You are the least politically upsetting of vastly limited choices. Your collogues may be better qualified, but you, Doctor Keller, have the distinction of being unthreatening. To everyone:

"The Chinese contribute almost a quarter of the project's budget and want greater representation in this Second Expedition, which the Europeans are firmly against, but while they may have the political clout to block the confirmation of the Chinese candidate, their internal squabbling is enough to keep them from agreeing on either the Russian or the French candidate. While normally a non-American would be a better alternative, the next-best candidate is Canadian, which has all of them fuming, as Canada is one of only three IOA nations to support the defection of several members of the First Expedition and has even offered dual citizenship to any of those _émigrés_ who want to retain their ties to Earth.

"So, you see, you are nonthreatening politically. You also have a history of humanitarianism and strong ties to your father – and, thus, Earth. More importantly," Telford smiles again, "you _need_ us, and, if you agree to be our Chief of Medicine, I can personally guarantee that not only will your father be well provided for in your absence, but all your debts will be cleared as well."

Jennifer is smart. She finished high school at fifteen and earned her Bachelor's shortly before her nineteenth birthday. She speaks English, French, and three of the Ivorian dialects. She's preformed surgery in the rough and under fire and in some of the best surgical suites in the country.

She's also desperate – but not so desperate not to ask, "What's the catch?"

"Catch?" Telford repeats, somewhat amused. "There's no catch. All we ask is that you do what you've been trained to do. And if, perhaps, you overhear something that one of the Emperor's men would not feel comfortable sharing in front of military personnel…"

"You want me to spy on them."

"Nothing so crass. Nothing that you feel might violate your oaths, only what you feel comfortable sharing. This alien may be the least of all possible evils, but he's still evil, Doctor Keller. He's a tyrant. A self-proclaimed god. He massacred over a hundred of his own species to secure his position and abducted nearly two-dozen of his sympathizers from this very planet not two weeks ago just to prove that he could. All we are doing is keeping an eye on him the best way we can."

"The best the United States Air Force can do is a twenty-eight-year-old doctor from Chippewa Falls?"

Telford doesn't answer her question. Instead he says, "We're approaching the Mountain," in a way that's both casual and menacing all at once. "I'll need your answer before we reach the gate."

She wants to ask: _"Will my father be safe? What if I refuse? What happens when it stops being 'only what I'm comfortable with'?" _but those are questions she can't share. They're blood in the water. They're choices she doesn't have. Instead she says, "Alright. I'll do it," and hopes to God she doesn't come to regret it later, although Jennifer already knows she will.

A little while later, as she's digging her driver's license out of her purse, Jennifer thinks she's going to come to regret her whole life one day, and she'll be too weighted down by everything that's happened and everything she must do to change it. She can see it coming, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, but she's powerless to stop it. All she can do is try to ride it out and, with luck, she'll make it out alive.


	2. Pars Dua

_Medici_

_An Ancient!John Story_

* * *

_Pars Dua_

* * *

**5 December, 2007 / 35 Mar. a.f.c. I – Stargate Command, Terra, Avalon**

"Doctor? Doctor Keller? Can I speak with you for a second?"

Jennifer turns away from the gurney, upon which she's currently going through her rucksack for the third time in as many hours, trying in vain to assure herself that, yes, she's packed everything she's going to need and, yes, if by some tragic oversight she _has_ managed to forget something, it can easily be sent to her via one of the _Daedalus_' bimonthly supply runs or through one of the irregularly-scheduled dial-ins. Despite this perfectly sensible and reasonable knowledge, however, her mind keeps circling back to what she's heard of the first year of the Expedition from Doctor Kavanagh, this Expedition's lead scientist, about how resources were so scarce that everyday luxuries she took for granted, even in Côte d'Ivoire, became precious commodities, horded for months, or else sold at high price on the not-so-black market. Her medical equipment has been inventoried down to the last roll of gauze by a team of, frankly, terrifying nurses that are somehow hers to command and she trusts their judgment, but her personal effects are different. She doesn't know what she'll miss until she needs it – a book, a picture, a locket she hasn't worn in years. "Er, sure," she says nervously, and follows him out into the hall.

"Thanks. Normally I wouldn't ask something like this, but things have been so tense lately between us and Atlantis that I felt it was best to go through channels the military wouldn't think to watch."

"Ask what?"

Doctor Jackson shuffles nervously for a second, eyes darting to either side as if to reassure himself that the empty corridor they're standing in is, in fact, still empty, before pulling out a small package about the size and shape of a necklace gift box. "Because of everything that's happened lately, John wasn't able to Gate to Earth for the ceremony. Rodney's sister accepted the award on his behalf – her speech was quite touching, actually – and she sent it to Sam, who was able to get it past security because, well, she's the XO. And, anyway," he says quickly, apparently realizing he's veered rather off topic, "it's John's Fields Medal. I'm pretty sure it will mean nothing to him, but it's his, so he should have it, and the powers that be would never allow something like this to leave the planet given the state of things at the moment, so… I need you to take it to Atlantis in your things."

"I'm sorry, what?" Jennifer asks, blinking.

"John Sheppard, the guy who solved the Riemann Problem that's been all over the news lately, and the Emperor of Pegasus are one in the same."

"But the Emperor is an Ancient – an _alien_."

"John's an Ancient. His name is actually Iohannes Ianideus Licinus Pastor. Well, Iohannes Ianideus Icarus Imperator now – apparently the Ancients had this habit of adopting new names and identifiers with changes in status or position, so technically while the _John_ is still correct, the _Sheppard_ really isn't any longer. Not that it was _ever_ correct, that's more sort of a direct translation of his rank or title. A better translation would have been _John Janusson_, but I think the folks involved with transliterating his name were a little literal with the _last name_ thing."

Jennifer has never been much of a magazine reader, but even she been unable to miss the whirlwind of cover stories that have been done about the US Air Force officer who managed to solve the unsolvable problem from his tent in the middle of some incredibly dangerous part of Afghanistan – she can never remember where. Some pundits hold him up as an example of the modern military, full of the educated elite who would give their heart and soul for their nation, trying to turn the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into some sort of anti-Vietnam by filling it with noble patriots instead of lower-class draftees. Others had used him as an example of the war's waste, sending so many of their best off to somewhere they could only die, or be gravely injured, or come back with mental scaring that would haunt them for life. Both sides had taken his absence from the ceremony in Madrid that was supposed to honor the award winners as further proof of their beliefs, particularly given his RSVP. Video clips of the acceptance speech a family friend – this sister of Rodney's – had given on his behalf have been circling the news cycle for days.

The quotation she'd taken from Robert Ardrey's _African Genesis_ – the part of the speech all the video clips include, - _"The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses,"_ now seems different in the light of the knowledge that the award was being accepted on behalf of an _alien_. An _Ancient_. The _last_ Ancient – last because he'd murdered his fellows in cold blood to place a crown upon his head.

"Oh," she says faintly.

Jackson gives her a smile Jennifer cannot quite describe. It's tired and care-worn but, like the anthropologist himself, is far from resigned. She doesn't know his story (she doesn't think she'll ever know all the stories there are to know in a place like this, where secrets are a way of life and everything of importance is better left unsaid), but she's heard enough to know that he has no reason to still believe that there is good in the universe. He should be bitter and broken, but he's so unwaveringly kind that, even in the week or so she's been at the SGC Jennifer's not been able to help but noticing it. It's a smile that's filled with hope but reluctant acknowledgement of the reality of the situation as well.

"Don't believe everything Telford's said about John," he says, "or Rodney, or any of the others who defected, for that matter. They're not bad people. Their intentions are admirable. They just maybe went about things in the wrong way."

"Colonel Telford thinks the Emperor's going to be the next 'big bad'."

Jackson's smile tightens then. "I don't know. John's a genuinely good man, but the fact remains that the others have their rules about godhood and non-interference for a reason. I hope Telford's wrong. I _think_ he is. But I don't think pre-Ascension John would have had it in him to kill the last of his people, to say nothing of all demands he made to let the Expedition back."

"Demands?"

"Oh, nothing like you're probably thinking. Some medical supplies that are impossible to get ahold of in Pegasus, some industrial supplies as well – copper wire, transistors, that sort of thing. Nothing terribly dangerous or interesting except for what he might do with them." He looks at his watch. "You should get going. The staging for the first group is scheduled to start in forty-five minutes, which means Telford's probably starting now, so you should probably be going."

* * *

She can feel the medal burning a hole in her rucksack pocket. It's burning through her three changes of uniform, her twelve pairs of socks, and the stuffed bear her parents had gotten her when she was seven months old and had long outgrown except for the moments when she hadn't. It's terrible and terrifying and Jennifer has this feeling that, by agreeing to currier this for Doctor Jackson, she's put herself at the beck and call of another faction of Stargate Command's fractional internal politics. Maybe not as overtly as she had with Colonel Telford, but the fact remains that the organizations involved disagree about how to handle _The Atlantis Situation _and she's stuck in the middle of it, not even knowing half of what she needs to.

"Are you alright?"

Jennifer starts.

"Whoa," Major Teldy says wryly. "No need to be so jumpy. We haven't even started dialing the Gate yet."

"I- I'm sorry. I'm just nervous, I guess."

"Don't be. Gate travel is the safest form of transportation there is. Safer than planes. Probably safer than your own two feet. What you need to worry about isn't the journey, but what's on the other side."

"Well _that's_ reassuring."

The Major snorts. "I'm not paid to be reassuring. The Pegasus galaxy is filled with dangers. Compared to our own, it's the Wild West. There are Wraith and Replicators and ten-thousand-year-old Ancient who may or may not be the salvation of the universe but is more likely it's ruination.

"If you wanted safe, you should have stayed at home and been a small town doctor, gone to work everyday and taken care of babies with diaper rash and old folks with bum knees. You'd die at ripe old age in your bed with a life like that.

"But safe's not for folks like us, is it?

"Like us?" Jennifer repeats, confused to be included in the statement. All she's ever wanted to do is die exactly like that, at a ripe old age in her bed. She wants a husband and kids and a white picket fence and a dog. She wants to be able to go to Dad's every Thanksgiving and Christmas and Fourth of July. She wants to join PTAs and go to soccer practices and piano recitals. She wants to care for kids through colic and watch them grow up and struggle with acne and get married and have kids of their own and get bad backs and bum knees. She wants that sense of family.

But on the other hand, she doesn't. There's a reason she spent three years in Côte d'Ivorie. There's a reason she wasn't content to stay at Sacred Heart or find a better paying job at a different hospital. She doesn't want to help people who already have it all. She wants to help people who _need_ her help, people who would have died slow, painful, forgotten deaths otherwise. That's the kind of medicine she wants to practice.

They're two contrary sides of herself, two sides she's never been able to reconcile. Maybe Atlantis will be able to provide the proper balance between old-fashioned small town doctor and third-world humanitarian. Maybe.

If the politics don't tear her apart.

"We know that nothing worth doing is safe or easy or nine to five. There are people in Pegasus that honestly need help, help we're uniquely qualified to give, and they don't care if we're male or female, Christian or Muslim or Jew, American or African or European, or any of it. All that matters to them is if we do what we say we'll do."

"So you've been to Pegasus before then?"

Teldy shakes her head. "Nah. But I've read all the mission reports. You get a feel for a place, reading those."

"But how can you be so sure?"

A noise like a train pulling into station begins, the clanking of metal and pistons (or something) that comes with the inner ring of the Stargate beginning to dial.

"'Cause it's the only choice I have," she says, clapping a hand on Jennifer's shoulder. Then, beginning to move to the front of the group, she adds, "See you on the other side," before leaving her completely.

* * *

**5 December, 2007 / 35 Mar. a.f.c. I – Atlantis, Lantea, Avalon**

She steps out into a beautiful, two-story atrium. A balcony surrounds three sides of the upper level, with a glass-walled office on the right of this. A series of terminals sits just to the left of that, with hallways going off to either side both above and below. Lighted glyphs cover the crownings; more litter the baseboards and stretch across the stairs that make up the focal point of the room – as much as anything besides the open Gate behind her can be a focal point.

But the true highlight of the room is the stained class windows. They are beyond intricate, awash with bright, warm colors and intricate geometric patterns. They bathe the room in buttery light, so warm and inviting after a Colorado winter. And it's all Jennifer can do to turn and stare.

It's only on her third rotation that she notices all the people. Not everyone who's Gated through with her – the Second Expedition is transporting over in three groups, hers containing the senior staff and the better part of the military contingent – but those on the upper level. A good ten or fifteen of them, all dressed in clothing she associates with Jeanne d'Arc and the War of the Roses, but in far more muted colors-

-except for one, who's wearing deep shade of blue with extensive embroidery along the collar and down the full, flared sleeves, which catches in the light as he waves his hands wildly as he talks to two others – a man with glasses in a similar costume, whose clothes are a dim, dusky dolphin purple, and another in a more conservative outfit of dove grey with buttons down the front and heavy bracers on his arms. He seems irritated and over-caffeinated and generally unhappy with the Expedition's presence.

The man in grey smiles before turning to scan the crowd. His eyes alight on Telford – conspicuous in his starched and pressed dress blues amid the sea of black-on-grey Expedition uniforms that crowd the lower level – and his smile dims somewhat. He says something to the other two that appears poorly received before heading down the stairs.

"Colonel Telford," he says casually, easily, as if he's a veteran of a hundred such meetings. "Sheppard wanted me to tell you how sorry is he can't be here in person to meet you, but he's running a bit behind schedule today. I'm_-_"

"I know you who you are."

"I don't think you do. I am Evan Lorne, though I'll also answer to Davidus Iohanideus Argathelianus Pastor if you're feeling particularly Ancient-y. I am a _legatus _in the Reformed Lantean Guard and _navarchus_ of the battleship _Aurora_. Sheppard has seen fit to name me _praetor_ of Atlantis as well, which means you, Colonel, will be reporting to me for the duration of your stay in this galaxy."

Scoffing, "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"And yet, that's what Sheppard's going with," Lorne informs him with a wide smile and hands on his hips – not all that close to the gun strapped to his thigh, which should be incongruent with the rest of his clothing but appears to be of the same metal as the small silver lozenge on his collar and the buttons down his coat.

Is this what aliens are like? Medieval warriors with laser guns on their hips?

But this man isn't an alien. He's not even one of the Émigrés – the fifteen men and eight women from the First Expedition who wanted to return to Atlantis so badly they forsook they left their homeworld to follow a man half the universe thinks is a god and the other the devil in the making. He's the one who fancies himself the devil's son.

"Where _is_ Sheppard?"

"He's in a meeting with the Cacique of Corcyra regarding joining the Confederation. But, as I said, it's running a rather late. But you can take it up with Doctor McKay if you like."

"McKay!"

"Yes? What?" the man in blue snaps, turning away from his – quite heated – conversation, which has continued without faltering the entire time. "Can't you tell I'm busy?"

Lorne snorts. "Give it up, Pops. You're not going to win this argument. So why don't you come down here and say hi to the newbies?"

"Not true. I will win eventually, when you realize the depth of the sheer insanity you're subscribing to and start to scramble for the surface," he continues as he heads down the stairs, the man in purple following a few steps behind and, by the looks of things, muttering something dark under his breath. "And meeting them depends entirely on the whether or not there's anyone interesting in the bunch."

"By your definition of interesting? Not very. They got the guy who used to be in charge of the F-302 fighter group at the Alpha Base to be the new military commander, though."

"That's uninspiring. How about the Head of the Expedition? Better yet, who's the new me? None of the manifests they sent ever said."

"That would be me," Doctor Kavanagh says.


End file.
